Psalms 35

Series 3. (Psalms 35:1-28; Psalms 36:1-12; Psalms 37:1-40; Psalms 38:1-22; Psalms 39:1-13.) The holiness of God, whether in judgment or in grace. The third series displays the holiness of God, whether in judgment or in grace, the middle psalm of the series -again a third, -showing this in an especial manner, as might be anticipated, and in both ways. Almost the whole psalm is thus divided by the alphabetic structure into couplets of verses, which develop the contrasted portions of righteous and wicked, and with special reference to the inheritance of the land by the righteous only. The psalms on either side of this, take up respectively (Psalms 35:1-28; Psalms 36:1-12.) God’s dealings with the wicked; and (Psalms 38:1-22; Psalms 39:1-13.) those with the righteous. The whole of them are simple in character, as is natural, for they are intended to make things plain. Thus comment will be naturally briefer also.

Psalms 35:1-28

The appeal of the righteous for righteous judgment upon the persecutor. [A psalm] of David. The thirty-fifth psalm gives us that of which the Lord speaks in the gospel of Luke (Luke 18:1-8), the cry of God’s elect, suffering since Abel’s time, at the hand of the persecutor, and for which judgment yet will be poured out. Often a voiceless cry, sometimes exchanged, as in Stephen’s case, and the many of Christian times of which he was the protomartyr, for the prayer, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge!” it finds at last full expression at the lips of the Jewish remnant of the last days. The long-suffering of God is then fast running out, and the prayer is in full harmony with the mind of God. In this psalm it is a fully argued plea, and one which He admits and acts upon. It shows how fully God’s judgment is in sympathy with all that is good and true, in the unequal conflict between good and evil in a fallen world, and in the interests of the earth itself, to destroy those that destroy it (Revelation 11:18).

1. The whole psalm is thus a cry, but especially the first part is purely this, an appeal to power in their behalf. The argument comes later in the character and acts of those against whom judgment is sought. The cry is, however, measured carefully, and the numerical structure is as marked as elsewhere. “Strive, Jehovah, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me:” give them treatment congruous to their own behavior. Then we see how needed is the help he craves: for his first thought is of “shield and buckler “of course, to be interposed between him and his foes. But he soon advances to offensive weapons, and seeks Jehovah to stand in the way, with leveled spear between him and his pursuers: to be Himself his salvation.

All that God is would thus be pledged in his behalf. Then he is free to think more of the enemies, first of all praying for their prostration and overthrow; then chased by the angel of Jehovah as the wind chases the chaff; finally that their way as thus pursued may be dark and slippery, so that they will fall and rise no more. 2. Now he brings his plea for their destruction: first, the causelessness of their plots against him, their net hid carefully in the pit into which he is to fall; then, that it will only be to let their own trap catch them -themselves to be the cause of their own destruction: for which none surely will be to blame but they themselves. Jehovah will thus become the exultation of his soul, and that as found in the experience of one needy and afflicted, having no other helper. The righteous and the wicked, God and his creature man, will thus be all in their right place. The plea, brief as it is, has thus in it all the elements of successful prayer. 3. But, while these are the principles, the case needs to be more fully stated; and this is done in the two sections that follow: here, in behalf of the saint; while in the next, that of the sinner alone is in question. And here again, first, personal righteousness is affirmed: unrighteous witnesses -literally, witnesses of violence, violently wresting things to make out their charges -laid against him things of which his conscience was entirely free. Instead of this, he was conscious only of good that he had done them, which they now recompensed with evil, so that his soul stood alone, bereft of the support it might have counted on from it. Then he shows what in reality had been his state towards them, and that before God Himself. When they were sick, he had fasted and prayed, even in sackcloth.

He had mourned them as for friends -yea, brother or mother. And now, at the least sign of evil upon his part, the tongues of evil rang out against him, wholly unprepared for it; and with mocking parasites, they gnashed their teeth -in vain, for God had set them their limit. (This is what the gnashing of the teeth, I think, implies, as the numeral does, -a limit against which they chafed: conscious, as it were, of the fence not permitted them to pass, although invisible, which God had put round His beloved.) This is the case on his side, in attestation of his integrity, which he thus spreads out and puts into the Lord’s hand as supreme, urging whether He can any longer be content, knowing it all, merely to look on. There had been indeed a limit: was it not ready now to be overstepped? “Rescue my soul,” he cries, “from their destructions! my only one from the lions!” It is the cry of the twenty-second psalm (ver. 20) again: the cry of the chief Sufferer wrung out of others here, as we find features like His in other parts of this description. Is it not intended to remind us that God is Himself linking in this His Well-beloved with these also beloved? putting upon them, as it were, the frankincense of the meat-offering? And so the Priest-Angel of the Apocalypse (Revelation 8:2-5) adds to the prayers of the saints the incense, which find answer then in the judgments by which the earth is to be cleansed and made ready for the coming blessing. Here, too, the blessing is looked on to, the “great congregation” and the “much people” before whom redeemed Israel shall celebrate the God who has come in for them. And this is another link with the twenty-second psalm (ver. 25). 4. Now follows the more distinct statement of the sin that calls for judgment, to which, we shall see in the next section, the judgment exactly answers. First, once more, the causeless hatred of the righteous, which, being causeless, has in fact its cause in their righteousness itself. For righteousness, therefore, must the judgment come: evil must not be permitted to rejoice over it. Next comes the sin against peace, -the spirit of conflict and war which has so long possessed itself of the earth and cursed it. To those of such a spirit, the quiet in the land would be themselves the cause of opposition. But the Prince of peace comes, who is to restore peace. Next comes the sin against reality, -here still in the form of opposition to the righteous. But this is linked with all the falsehood elsewhere, the spirit that puts evil for good and good for evil, and miscalls and confuses things all over the world. Now comes the appeal to Him who knows the reality of things. -whose Presence makes all things at once come to their true form. “Keep not silence: be not far from me! Stir up Thyself and awake for my right: for my cause, my God and my Lord!” 5. The appeal for judgment extends through all the remainder of the psalm, and characterizes this last section, which the twenty-third verse only leads on to, after a manner very common all through this series, and which has been remarked upon before. The appeal here is, first of all, in behalf of righteousness; then for deliverance from those who were just ready to rejoice as having swallowed up the object of their enmity; then for shame and dishonor to be put where they belong, that is, upon the foes of righteousness. And then, as it seems to me, Israel being manifestly the speaker, it is urged that the nations should be made to rejoice in delivered Israel’s joy, as we know they will do. While they themselves, the people of God once more, and with no temporary return to God as so often before, will talk of His righteousness and of His praise all the day long.